The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed IIT JEE Mains 2022 aspirants who approached the Court challenging the National Testing Agency’s notice dated March 1, 2022, reducing the sessions of JEE Mains 2022 from four to two to file a representation before the concerned authorities raising their grievances.
A bench of Justices DY Chandrachud, Surya Kant, and Bela Trivedi ruled that the Court cannot interfere with the authorities’ policy decisions; however, the bench allowed the petitioners to approach the authorities with their grievances.
The petitioners’ counsel argued that reducing the sessions would make the test more stringent.
“How do we now continue to interfere with any policy? They haven’t changed the eligibility requirements, course content, or syllabus. What are your vested rights? “, said Justice Chandrachud.
“We will allow you to make a representation in this regard. When will the exams be held? “Justice Chandrachud inquired.
“The first is on April 21st. At least half of the exams are board exams “”Students,” the counsel responded.
The bench issued the following order in response to the writ petition:
“Petitioners are dissatisfied with the notification dated March 1, 2022 (amended on March 14, 2022) by which two sessions for JEE Mains 2022 were granted. The argument is that reducing the number of sessions from four to two would be difficult. We can allow the petitioners to submit representation to the competent authority for due consideration because the matter is in the policy domain. The petition has been dismissed.”
According to the petition, NTA decided to conduct JEE Mains 2021 in four sessions for the applicant’s benefit in December 2020, and the best of the scores for each applicant had to be finalised for his admission in engineering courses across the country.
The petitioners have also stated that numerous representations have been made to NTA since December 2021, but there has been no response or public notice informing applicants that JEE Mains will be held in only two sessions.
It was also argued in the plea that, shockingly, as late as March 15 2022, it was notified that only two sessions would be held and scheduled in April and May 2022, i.e. only about 45 days before the scheduled Exam, which overlapped/closely coincided with various Board Exams.
Sumanth Nookala, an advocate, filed the petition.
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